The Stay Afrik Journal

The Africa
they didn't teach you.

History, legends, and the details that don't fit on a packing list, written by people who were standing there when they found this stuff out.

More From The Journal
Egypt
History · 7 Min Read
Cleopatra Lived Closer to the iPhone Than the Pyramids
The Great Pyramid was already ancient by the time she was born. Do the math and it genuinely changes how you see the place.
Kenya
Culture · 6 Min Read
The Dance Troupe That's Only 30 Years Old, Playing Ceremonies That Are Centuries Older
The nightly cabaret at Nairobi's Nyama Choma Ranch looks ancient. It was choreographed in 1992, and the meat has a much older story than the show does.
Seychelles
History · 7 Min Read
The Island That Spent 140 Years in Quarantine
Curieuse Island's tortoises are there because of what the island used to be, not just because it's a nice place for them to live.
Nature · 5 Min Read
The Waterfall That's Actually Two, Arguing
Boti Falls is really two waterfalls, locally called male and female, that only merge during the rainy season.
History · 7 Min Read
They Renamed the Door in 1998
It used to be the Door of No Return. Then two people brought two sets of ancestral remains home through it.
South Africa
Nature · 5 Min Read
Table Mountain Is Older Than the Himalayas. By a Lot.
It's not just a nice backdrop for photos. The actual age of this thing doesn't feel real once you hear the number.
Egypt
History · 7 Min Read
The Temple They Cut Into 1,035 Pieces to Save
Abu Simbel was about to disappear under a rising lake. Fifty countries paid to cut it apart and put it back together with a 5mm margin for error.
Kenya
History · 7 Min Read
The Water Is Beautiful. The Cave Isn't.
Wasini Island has some of the clearest snorkeling water on the Kenyan coast. A few minutes away, a set of coral caves holds a much heavier story.
Seychelles
Culture · 5 Min Read
This Beach Played a Desert Island in 1988
Part of Anse Source d'Argent stood in for Robinson Crusoe's island once. You can stand on the exact spot.
History · 6 Min Read
They Built This to Impress the Queen Who Used to Rule Them
Ghana's Independence Arch was finished on a deadline: Queen Elizabeth II's 1961 state visit.
South Africa
History · 6 Min Read
One Guy Bought a Rundown Building and Renamed the Neighborhood
Maboneng means "place of light" in Sesotho. Before 2008, nobody called this part of Johannesburg that at all.
History · 6 Min Read
The Well That Was Supposed to Make You Forget
At Badagry's Point of No Return, enslaved Africans were given water from a well locals believed would erase their memory.
History · 6 Min Read
He Built a Pool Because He Wasn't Allowed in Theirs
A Lagosian doctor, barred from British colonial clubs, built Nigeria's first public pool instead.
Nature · 5 Min Read
The Longest Walkway in Africa Sits on Land an Oil Company Gave Away
Before it was a nature reserve, this land belonged to Chevron. Now it holds Africa's longest canopy walkway.
Egypt
History · 6 Min Read
The Temple Two Gods Had to Split Down the Middle
Kom Ombo is the only temple in Egypt built for two rival gods, complete with 300 mummified crocodiles and 2,000-year-old surgical tools carved in stone.
South Africa
History · 6 Min Read
Napoleon's Last Request Was a Glass of This Wine
Groot Constantia has been making wine since 1685. Napoleon drank it in exile. Jane Austen wrote it into her novels.
Egypt
Mystery · 6 Min Read
The Boy King Who Almost Stayed Lost Forever
Archaeologists dug within forty feet of Tutankhamun's tomb for years and walked past it every time.
Seychelles
History · 6 Min Read
He Bought an Island for £8,000 and Never Left
A newspaper editor with no conservation background bought a neglected island in 1962. He spent fifty years proving that didn't matter.
Egypt
Culture · 7 Min Read
The People the Dam Displaced, and What They Kept
Everyone learns about the temples the High Dam nearly drowned. Few learn what happened to the people who lived along that same river.
Egypt
Engineering · 6 Min Read
The Temple They Moved Stone by Stone
Every column at Philae Temple is genuinely ancient. The island underneath it was built from scratch in the 1970s.